A Weblog by One Humble Bookman on Topics of Interest to Discerning Readers, Including (Though Not Limited To) Science Fiction, Books, Random Thoughts, Fanciful Family Anecdotes, Publishing, Science Fiction, The Mating Habits of Extinct Waterfowl, The Secret Arts of Marketing, Other Books, Various Attempts at Humor, The Wonders of New Jersey, the Tedious Minutiae of a Boring Life, Science Fiction, No Accounting (For Taste), And Other Weighty Matters.

Who Is This Hornswoggler?

Andrew Wheeler is a Vassar alum, class of 1990. He spent 16 years as a bookclub editor (mostly for the Science Fiction Book Club), and then moved into marketing. He marketed books and related products to accountants for Wiley for eight years, and now works for Thomson Reuters as Senior Marketer for Corporate Counsel. He was a judge for the 2005 World Fantasy Awards and the 2008 Eisner Awards. He also reviewed a book a day for a year twice. He lives with The Wife and two mostly tame sons (Thing One, born 1998; and Thing Two, born 2000) at an unspecified location in suburban New Jersey. He has been known to drive a minivan, and nearly all of his writings are best read in a tone of bemused sarcasm. Antick Musings’s manifesto is here. All opinions expressed here are entirely and purely those of Andrew Wheeler, and no one else.

3 comments:

The argument here is that homosexuals are so chaste that they will not take a sexual partner unless such partnership is solemnized by the sacrament of marriage. This argument neither reflects experience nor makes sense logically.

I am a Catholic and a proud supporter of civilization. The defining characteristic of the civilized man over the barbarian is that he puts reason over emotion, longterm over shortterm, self-discipline over self-indulgence. The only thing making the case of homosexuality different from other barbarian practices is that the short-term emotional self-indulgence in this case happens to be a disordered sexual passion. The redefinition of the sacrament of marriage in the attempt to make the disordered seem ordered, no matter how well intentioned, is counterproductive. All that would happen is the redefinition will make marriage legally meaningless, or, to be precise, more meaningless. This will not assuage the tears of the lonely sexual deviants, because their unhappiness is not imposed on them from society. By the same logic which dismisses a concern for civilization bigotry, Mr Obama himself was, until a fortnight ago, a bigot, and so too are all the Democrats and Progressives and Blacks of the Southern states who are members of this 60%.

Anonymous: Absolutely wrong. The argument is that married people are happier than single ones, and that's actually been proven by research. (Also, you seem to implicitly agree with it.)

Second, homosexuality is not a "barbarian practice," and saying so merely means you are a bigot.

And I really don't care how fucking Catholic you are when you're that bigoted as well.

Considering that the great-grandfather of one of our current Presidential candidates had five wives, and that marriages between people of different races were illegal in the US within human memory, your claim that marriage is a "sacrament" that has never previously been "redefined" is laughable.

You're on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of politics, and the wrong side of human compassion.